


Punches

by bellinibeignet



Series: It's Easy to Remember [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-15
Updated: 2012-06-15
Packaged: 2017-11-07 17:51:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellinibeignet/pseuds/bellinibeignet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set post-Inception, Arthur starts to have lapses in his memory, and Eames reinstates his boxing career in hopes to save him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Punches

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE DON'T SKIP THIS.
> 
> This story is based around a lot of the light and darkness. If you choose to stick with the order in which they are posted, you can do just that!
> 
> BUT! You can do it many other ways. To see the trajectory of light slowly turning dark, read it like this: Moonlight, The Test of October, How the Times Slip, Even on the Bad Days, Punches, and the currently untitled finale!
> 
> Although I haven't done it myself, try reading it in another order and let me know how that happens.
> 
> Of course, the best option is the way it is currently posted, but doing a re-read from the beginning to their end temporally might be worth the dive!
> 
> *The inspiration comes from my obsession with the film Warrior, and Tom Hardy's impeccable ability to convey vulnerability on and off screen.

-

“Head low. Keep your left hand up. Left hand up! He always connects to the left. Block him. Head low. Low, and keep it moving. Recover! Recover! Head low. Kick! Get him in the choke. Make him tap. He _has_ to tap. There is no other choice.”

Choices. Those had always been funny to Eames. Mostly because they’d never been very difficult. There was always a blatantly more appealing side to every decision - one side was always more beneficial, or, if he was feeling like a good man, selfless and moral. (This happened more often than not, if you choose to believe that.)

Arthur, however, had been difficult-ish. (Of course, _that_ is easy to believe.) At any given moment, Eames didn’t know if Arthur was making him feel weak-kneed, or annoying the fuck out of him. At the worst of that confusion, he wasn’t sure which reason he had for wanting to slip himself between Arthur’s lips: to satiate the tension, or to stop him from making another fucking condescending comment.

Deciding. Allowing. Making up his mind to attach himself to a partner. To be weakened. To lust. To touch. To love. To realize that he’d found the half that made him whole. To fight.

Eames sank down into the chair in the corner of Dom’s office, chugging down all of the water he could before huffing out a deep breath. His heart was still pumping with adrenaline, and the blood in his ears was rushing loudly over Dom’s voice. Still, he did his best to listen.

“There are going to be a bunch of guys out there who know what the fuck they are doing,” Dom said carefully, leaning back in his own chair. “They’ll want to mop the floor with you.”

“You think I’m going to let that happen?” Eames mumbled, eyes skirting along the chipped paint on the walls, the brown spot in the corner seemed larger than yesterday. “You might want to get someone to look at that, yeah?

Dom sneered, but it was affectionate somehow. “Your motivation is pure, but that doesn’t mean a goddamn thing. If they can, these guys will rip you in half. No matter what you need that money for.”

Eames turned to attention. “Would that stop you?”

That was probably a needling question, Eames knew, but he’d said it anyway. Because Dom knew better than anyone did that, if you had a shot, a chance for another chance, there was no need to think. Jumping is the only option. You do it.

After years of searching for a way back home, Dom took his life back with one job. A dangerous one. The very last one. The only one that seemed to exist in his memory anymore. None of the other jobs mattered.

Now, he found himself on the lighter side of things, thank God. He had his kids, owned a gym, and found it easier to smile, easier to think of Mal in her lightness, not her tragedy.

Perhaps after falling in love with Arthur, Eames had jinxed his own lightness. In the first few years together, Eames would catch Dom with the loneliest look in his eyes. He hadn’t been the least surprised when Eames and Arthur fell into one another, and he was more than happy for his friends. But still. When they came around, Dom would shoot a thoughtful glance in their direction, unable to look away from their private moments.

And suddenly, Eames would find himself saying a little prayer for Arthur: when he was out on a job alone, when he was sleeping, when he was going to the market. Just a small thought, a hope. A hope that he’d always be safe. A hope that neither of them would know Dom’s pain. That last part was a bit of a selfish prayer.

Because Arthur would be fine without Eames. He was sure of that. Arthur was careful and smart and a bit younger. He’d find someone if he wanted. Someone else. In the event that Eames was no longer there, Arthur would pick himself up and try again.

Eames wasn’t very confident that he’d pull off such a feat.

“You’ve told him?” Dom asked quietly.

Eames shrugged, eyes down. “Not yet. I will.”

“Still scared?”

“Of course. You bloody know him. Anything out of his control won’t blow over well.”

“Natural response. You can’t control something and you lose your grip a little bit.”

“Believe me. I’d love some control right about now.” He stood with a stretch, then rubbed a bruise forming on his belly. “That fucker put up a fight, yeah?”

“Just ice down and stay stretched out. The most we’ll do tomorrow is a bag and pads.” He lifted a piece of paper on his desk up, waving it. “Got a call today. You fight on Sunday. You win that, you’re going to be fighting for a lot of money in the near future.”

Eames slipped into a t-shirt and sweatshirt from his bag, then saw his mobile blinking. “I’ll win,” he said absent-mindedly, reading his two new text messages.

+bring coffee on your way home?

+i think I want a cat.

 

-

When Arthur first showed signs of being sick, it struck them both as unusual, but Eames was the only one to voice concern. Arthur wasn’t the type to forget anything. Misplaced keys, forgotten lunches, misremembered phone messages - simple losses to other people, but not Arthur. Not a Pointman whose job - whose whole life - bent to the notion of knowing everything: inside and out, backwards and forwards with no room to forget.

Eames knew something was wrong right there and then, and suggested that he go see a doctor, but Arthur shrugged it off. Said that Eames worried too much. Said that he was being silly.

One Sunday afternoon, Arthur woke up with a lost look in his eyes, wondering whose home he was in, unable to think of Eames’ name, and he finally accepted that he had a problem. Accepted that something was happening to him. Nothing he could overlook now.

The first thing Eames did was call Yusuf. He would know… something. Something that Eames didn’t. And that was the painful conclusion. That Eames had no idea what to do. Didn’t know which way was up. Didn’t know how to save face.

Yusuf had a friend from Italy. Arnaudo. A specialist.

“You’re far too young for early onset Alzheimer’s.” He didn’t look like a doctor, with his scrawny limbs and thick mustache and large dark eyes. He was eccentric and wild haired. Perhaps what was why skeptics trusted him. “And no past head trauma? Any family history of mental illness?”

Arthur took a deep breath. “No head trauma, no. And no illness on my mom’s side that I know of. Didn’t know my dad.”

Arnaudo managed a careful smile as he looked to Eames, who sat quietly in the lush chair next to Arthur. He hadn’t said a word. Only there for support. Only there because he didn’t seem to belong much place else. At least, not when Arthur needed him.

“It suffers me to think this, because there’s never been a case for us to believe otherwise, but…” His eyes said it before his lips did. “How often do you go under?”

Arthur cocked his head, brows high and curious. “I mean… more often than most, I guess. I work a lot of jobs. Don’t really do it for recreation. Experiments –“ He scooted to the edge of his seat and placed a hand carefully on his desk. “Wait. You think dreamsharing has done this?”

“I don’t know,” Arnaudo sighed. “It could be the dreamsharing itself – perverse effects of dying in dreams or letting others walk in your head. Could be the Somnacin – whether it is the formulas or the dosage after having done this for so long. But it could be…” He shrugged. “Anything. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“So the best thing you can tell me is you ‘don’t know’?” Arthur was beginning to feel frustrated.

“There is nothing either of us can definitively conclude about what is happening to your memory, Arthur,” Yusuf said apologetically from his stance in the corner. “We can run tests, and do a bit of research, but at this very moment, we’re-“

“Useless,” Eames bit, finally. He looked away from the small snow globe sitting on the corner of Arnaudo’s desk, meeting eyes of their consultants. “There’s nothing you can do to help us.”

Arnaudo sighed. It was never easy to deliver fateful and fruitless news. Especially not to two of the most tense-shouldered and hard-headed men he’d ever met, one who obviously found it his mission in life to protect the other, the other a man who would be determined to find every route around the word ‘no’ possible.

“The only suggestion I can give you as of now is to consider backing away from dreamshare. Until we find some answers.”

-

Shortly after the Saito job, somehow, they’d fallen in love, and only two things mattered: the space between them, and the space they shared. There was an unspoken bond that formed when they slipped into one another, into habit.

That had been a choice for Eames. One of those easy ones. One that he wouldn’t regret, not even in the state of things.

Eames would’ve never asked Arthur to quit, even if he so desperately wanted him to. Because there was no pain worse than watching the love of your life struggle to say your name, grasping at memories, wondering where he was. It wasn’t a daily, or even a weekly thing, but witnessing it just once was enough pain to last a lifetime.

Fortunately, Arthur wasn’t stubborn enough not to realize the level of detriment his memory lapses could cause. After the third time in six months, he left the house for a walk, to collect himself, then came back, kneeling in front of Eames and saying that was going to quit going under. Until they figured things out.

“And so will I. I was just waiting for you.”

They went about it in different ways. Eames had no problem with stopping all together. For now, they had enough money saved between them that he welcomed the life of being home, of researching and visiting doctors, of pretending he wasn’t keeping a watchful eye on Arthur.

Arthur, however, hadn’t completely quit. He was a point man to his core, and he refused to drop off the face of the Earth. He could still plan, still research, still build, still pretend that he was fully functioning. Even though he was a point man who worked from home, the equivalent of a detective confined to a desk job, he was still the best, and people still needed his work.

Eames came barreling through the door of their small house, coffee in hand and snow on his tennis shoes. “English bulldog,” he called out. “Or nothing at all.” He smiled as he heard Arthur chuckle.

He dropped his gymbag and kicked off his shoes, then sauntered to the fireplace where Arthur was keeping warm, sitting on their spacious hearth rug with research piled around him in every direction.

“I said ‘cat’” Arthur murmured as he gave a small kiss as toll for his coffee. A hum spilled from him. He put his coffee down and pulled Eames down again for a slightly longer kiss, still rather chaste, but enjoyable.

Eames groaned as he dropped back lazily onto the couch, stretching his body to length. “A cat? Why on Earth must you make me suffer? Move me to the States, fine. Make me watch American telly, fine. Force coffee down my throat, fucking fine. But, I can’t have a dog?”

“You’ll pull through, I’m sure,” Arthur said boredly, but, as always, there was an inflection of love in his tone and crooked smile.

Eames sighed, lifting one of the manila folders off of the coffee table. Profiles and notes. “A new forger?”

Arthur didn’t look up from his notebook. “A Russian guy that Ariadne met a little while after we quit. He’s not new. He was second best, waiting for his shot at the big jobs. Now he’s got them.” He drank from his coffee.

Eames laughed to himself. “Looks like a right cunt you ask me.”

Arthur took the folder. “Then he’ll make a fine forger, hmm?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He stretched, slapping the folder back down, then groaned at a bruise that he seemed to have overlooked on his forearm. He flinched as he tried to ignore it, but Arthur noticed.

Eames watched the firelight fill Arthur’s cheeks as he put his notebook down and crawled the length to the couch, stopping along the way to grab the often used analgesic from the coffee table drawer. He nodded for Eames to strip his shirts, and he watched silently, eyes warm.

“I told you I would never lie to you,” Eames said quietly, gazing down at Arthur while the man deftly rubbed his fingers over his bruises, old and new, layering them with medicine. His eyes were dark and languid in the flicker of the burning fireplace. He had yet to say it, but he enjoyed Eames’ even thicker and tougher frame, muscles expanding over months in the gym, right before his eyes.

“You did,” Arthur replied, not looking up. “Is that changing?”

Eames hissed at the bruise on his stomach, but quickly took Arthur’s wrist when he’d pulled away. He replaced it on his abdomen and gave a weak moan. “I haven’t been lollying at Dom’s for kicks.”

Arthur was quiet. A thoughtful quiet. “And?”

“I’m fighting again.”

Arthur’s brow furrowed and his eyes shot up to meet his gaze. “Fighting? Like… when you fought in the army?”

Eames did his fair share of boxing when he served, coming away with a few notable fights and a reputation. Only Arthur knew that. “Yes.”

Arthur set the medicine aside, eyes back on the bruises. “I mean, I knew you were… Obviously you were fighting, coming home with the bruises and the weight gain, but I thought you were just messing around.”

Eames shook his head. “I’ve been training.”

Arthur fell back from where he was on his knees to sit flat on the floor.

“I’m going to fight again, Arthur. To make a bit of money.”

“We don’t _need_ money.”

“We do. Doctors need money. Scientists need money. Before long, people will know you’re sick, and you won’t be able to do any more jobs. And I need to have a lenient gig. So I can travel and meet these doctors and pay them. And to be with you whenever I want.”

“Eames, this is –“

“And it’s to clear my head,” he admitted, shutting his eyes as he laid back down. “I’m not exactly stress free at the moment.”

He could hear Arthur’s defenses go up. “You don’t have to fight, or feel stress. You can always go.”

Eames opened his eyes and turned his neck to look at him, sitting there on the floor with a tight jaw, but weak and sorrowed eyes. “That’s just not an option.”

He held out his hand, and Arthur took it, allowing himself to be pulled up onto the couch, knees straddling Eames’ thighs.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m telling you now.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Because I knew you’d try to stop me. You’re insufferable, you know?”

“Someone needs to be.” He tucked his lips into Eames’ neck and breathed him in.

Eames’s hands found the small of Arthur’s back, and he rubbed him there as they lay in silence. Sleep was spreading in his eyelids before Arthur sat up, speaking.

“I don’t want you to fight.”

“Are you asking me not to?”

Arthur shook his head. “I’m saying that I don’t want you to fight.” He stood. “You need a shower. Some heat will do your muscles a favor.”

Eames stood under the showerhead, eyes shut, body loosening beneath the blast of hot water, and Arthur was behind him, quiet, hands soaping down his back, cleaning him carefully. The only sounds were the water slipping down the drain, and Eames’ low groans.

Eventually, Arthur turned him around, and slipped his hands around either side of his neck, his face relaxed, eyes nearly weak. “I know you,” he whispered.

That was a totem if there ever was one these days – knowing. Knowing that the person looking at you _sees_ you. And loves you. Because the few moments where Arthur didn’t know who and where he was didn’t qualify as reality. A world where Arthur didn’t want him, didn’t know him, didn’t care, wasn’t a world that Eames wanted to live in.

“I know you as well, love.” He pulled Arthur in, hands on his hips, drowning their bodies as they sank into a kiss, languid and thick until Arthur made his move, backing up against the tile wall, asking with gentle hands to be touched, to be filled.

In bed, they lay on their sides, looking at one another quietly, waiting to fall asleep.

“I have a fight on Sunday,” Eames told him, just as Arthur’s eyes became heavy. Eames smiled, and even chuckled, as Arthur perked his eyes back open as if he hadn’t been dozing off. “A big one, love.” He dragged a finger across Arthur’s collarbone.

“Here in Boston?” he asked quietly.

Eames shook his head. “I have to go up to Manchester. Early. I’ll train through the afternoon, fight in the evening.” Arthur’s face was expressionless. “Dom says if I win this one, it will bring me in on some pretty exclusive underground fights.”

“Because underground is our way of life, yeah?”

Eames offered half of a smile. “Will you come?” His voice faltered.

Arthur closed his eyes, lowered his brows. “If you asked me – if you absolutely needed me there, I’d go. But no. I don’t want to go.”

Eames had expected that much. He knew it wasn’t about Eames fighting. Arthur was well aware that Eames could handle himself, was a damn good kickboxer, and could take on a man twice his size with the right process of will.

Arthur hated that Eames had given up so much just to take care of him, just because of love. While Eames found that to be as great a reason as any, Arthur couldn’t accept his own weaknesses, let alone Eames’ bullheaded agenda to fight for him – for both their relationship and Arthur’s well-being.

“I won’t ask you to come,” Eames said sheepishly, laying on his back so that Arthur could curl into him. “I’d never make you do something you didn’t want to.”

Arthur kissed his shoulder with a heavy breath. “Don’t get hurt.”

“Of course.”

 

-

 

When Eames was twenty-one and high-stepping his way through the Army, rumbling around in boxing rings for recreation, he had no idea that, somewhere, there was a scowling teenager named Arthur that he would one day give everything to. That he would one-day step inside of a boxing ring with hopes of inadvertently saving that boy’s life. That the feeling of busted knuckles and fractured ribs would mean that a doctor could be paid, medication would be bought, and groceries would remain in the fridge.

There was no way that he could’ve known any of that then. All he knew was the glory of being good at something. Great, even. Medals and nicknames graced him for being able to bust a man’s nose open, to make him lay out in lost consciousness, or tap his hand to signal defeat. That was all that mattered then.

Now it wasn’t for glory, or a name. It was to save someone he’d never imagined would need saving. It was to forget those heart-wrenching memories of seeing Arthur doe-eyed and forgetful, trying desperately to refocus. It was to make sure that they’d never have to go through it again.

“What are you doing, huh?” Dom yelled, skin flushed as he rubbed petroleum jelly over Eames left brow. “You’re in there with half a heart and a bloody fucking face because all of a sudden you don’t know how to keep your hands up?”

“I’m trying!” Eames spat. “Get off my back, yeah?”

“Hey. Hey.” Dom was angry, or something like it. “You came to _me._ I’m here because you said you had something worth fighting for. You think I wanna be here? I could be at home with my kids, and you could be at home with your boyfriend, and I wouldn’t have had to sit through three minutes of you getting your ass beat.”

Eames huffed.

Dom grabbed Eames by his cheeks, grip tight, forcing eye-contact. “There is no choice. It isn’t win or lose. It isn’t fight or don’t fight. This is all about him. You wanna save him? Fucking do your job. Your best isn’t even enough. Your _all_ is the only payment that matters. I want this guy on the fucking ground. You hear me?”

Eames nodded.

“Make. Him. Tap.”

Eames could see Arthur, sitting in their living room, pretending that he wasn’t waiting by the phone, busying himself with file folders and trash telly. He could see him so clearly, with the face and slender shoulders that he loved so much.

He wanted to be home, to touch him, to have all of those small moments again and again. Making his opponent tap was not about choice or options. Dom was right - there was only one way to return home with his head held high, and that was winning this fight.

At the first opportunity that Eames had, he punched as hard as he could, landing right below the guy’s ear, sending him in an unconscious lump onto the floor.

He couldn’t hear the small crowd roar, or Dom’s ecstatic cheer. All he could hear was the sound of Arthur singing musical numbers off-key in the shower. The sound of his labored breath when he came in from a morning run. The sound of him saying his name. Eames. Like nobody else was meant to say it.

In his small dressing room, with Dom going on and on about how Eames had scared the hell out of him in the first round, Eames sent a fast fingered text to Arthur. He didn’t want to hear him just yet. He could wait until he was home. To lay eyes on him.

-i won. and i love you. be home soon.

 

-

 

When Eames got home, the lights were already out. Arthur was one of the ‘early to bed, early to rise’ types, and it was well after midnight, which meant that he was fast asleep by now.

He crept back to the bedroom, and found Arthur on his side of the bed, dangerously close to the edge, sleeping. Eames smiled. He used to joke that Arthur spent so much of his life stepping around with hard edges and careful looks that he even slept with a tight jaw. But it was just another thing to love. Another quirk that made it so exciting to fall in love with him, to learn his every inch. 

Arthur was an easy choice.

“Love,” he whispered, kneeling on his side of the bed and trickling his fingers over the stretch of Arthur’s neck. “Hey, babe. Wake up.”

Arthur moaned and started to stir.

“I won the match, love. I got the money.”

His eyes opened.

“Dom even let me keep his percentage. Like I’m a homeless or something.”

Arthur jolted back from Eames’ touch, scooting into Eames’ territory of the bed, eyes wide, looking around the room.

Eames felt his stomach churn. He was going to be sick.

“Who the fuck…?”

Eames held his hands up warily as they both stood on either side of the room, Arthur looking ready to bolt, to fight, and Eames feeling absolutely exasperated.

That night, he’d fought to save Arthur, and somehow, he’d still managed to forget that this was what he was trying to save him from. He’d forgotten that this was a possibility, and their world wasn’t simple anymore. There were no real guarantees.

“I’m Eames. I live here. With you.” He paced his words carefully. “You’re Arthur. You-“

“I know who I am,” Arthur snapped. “And _I_ live here. Not you. I don’t even know you.”

That was a punch to the gut.

After their first year together, of flying back and forth for jobs, living between Arthur’s apartment in Boston and Eames’ barely used flat in London, Eames announced that he wanted to buy a place in Edinburgh, and he wanted Arthur to live there with him. There’d been no pressure; it was entirely Arthur’s choice. Eames’ name would be on the lease. Eames would pay the rent. Eames only wanted to have a place of permanence for them. A home.

Arthur had said yes, quicker than Eames had thought he would.

Two years after that, Arthur's memories started to slip away, and when they pulled back from dreamsharing, his only request was that they moved back to his hometown, to Boston. And when they found a new home, both of their names were to be on the lease.

This was their home. Theirs. One didn’t belong there without the other.

Selective memory was a bogey, and they’d had the conversations. What if, one-day, Arthur woke up remembering everything but Eames? It was easy when he just forgot which car belonged to him, or his setting, or even Eames’ name, but to forget Eames altogether was a tragic thought.

And now, here they were.

“If you just… calm down,” Eames breathed. He knew the look in his eyes. Arthur wanted his gun. His eyes were shooting to the bookshelf where he’d hidden it, tucked in a hollowed edition of _Wuthering Heights_. “Just think of-“

“Look, you have three seconds to get out of here, or I’m going to force you to leave. Three.”

“Okay, okay.” Eames didn’t want to go. Not tonight. Not ever, but _definitely_ not tonight. Frustration was set in his jaw. “Okay, just. Look around. Look-look at your nightstand. That’s a photo of us right there - taken just a few months ago. See the Christmas tree?”

“Are you deaf, guy?” But his eyes were looking at the photo. God, they’d been so happy. They still were. They still were…

“Arthur, it’s me,” Eames managed quietly, taking a few steps around the bed so that he could look into his eyes.

Arthur took a step back, shoulders tense. His eyes were still on the photo. The messy side of their open closet. The painting on the wall that he would’ve never picked.

Eames got within reach and stopped. He wanted to touch him, but found restraint. “It’s your Eames.”

Arthur’s eyes barreled towards him like he was being challenged, like he was searching for an answer, like he wasn’t convinced.

“Look, I don’t know you,” Arthur said tightly. “I’m sorry, I just…” He looked around the room, then to Eames. “Just leave. I need… room.”

Eames nodded, more so to himself. To make himself move. To breathe and be okay with it. “Okay, okay.”

The walk to the front door, with Arthur close behind, was the longest walk, but not an unfamiliar one.

They weren’t a couple who fought a lot, but after all of their time together, of course they had their spats. Mostly in the beginning, when they were still young and anxious, waiting for the other to disappear. Because it was frustrating to love someone in a business as dangerous as theirs. Especially when having a partner meant putting them at risk. A vulnerability.

One night, Arthur pushed him out of his apartment in Boston, and Eames drank himself into a stupor in a nearby bar. Arthur came to pick him up, and on the walk home, they argued in the middle of the street, letting it all out. When they got home, they made love on the floor just inside of his front door, Eames saying he wasn’t leaving again.

There’d been other times where things were tough. Spending months apart because of separate jobs. Butting heads because of their conflicting ways of thinking. Arthur’s depression after his mother passed. It was always Arthur telling Eames to go away, that they may be better off without one another.

They both knew that wasn’t true. Somehow, their souls had latched, and the only way that Eames would ever leave was if someone slit his throat. Or, if Arthur fell in love with someone else and was happy elsewhere. Confident that their love was insurmountable, Eames didn't think that Arthur would ever leave for someone else. They'd become too ingrained in one another. Eames loved Arthur with so much power and sacrifice that he couldn't imagine conjuring the energy to love someone else more, and he was sure that Arthur felt the same way.

And so, every time Arthur's memory became clouded, Eames had to believe there was enough love between them to survive it, to bring Arthur back to reality. With forgetting, there was always the chance to remember. There was always going to be a chance of recalibrating, of falling in love again. Their home hummed with memories, waiting to trigger. The space between them could tell so many stories, share so many secrets. Eames hoped that that energy was enough. Enough to bring his love back to him. Even if it took hours, or days, or an unforeseeable length of time.

Eames had to believe in that.

He was halfway to his car when the light from the front porch shed on him, and he heard the door click open.

“Wait…”

Eames turned. There was still no awareness in Arthur’s eyes. He was Arthur, but he still didn’t carry himself as the man who loved Eames with every inch of himself. Eames was still a stranger.

Arthur met him on the walk, standing a comfortable distance. “Uhm…” He huffed, scratching at his brow. “I’m sorry. What was your name again?”

“Eames.” God that hurt.

“Eames. That’s not your first name, is it?”

Eames shook his head ‘no’.

“What is your first name?”

“Michael.”

“Do I not call you Michael?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“My father was called Michael. I don’t really attach myself to that.”

Arthur’s jaw tightened. “Michael…” He let the name dangle on his tongue, and the unfamiliarity was strong in his eyes. “Eames.” There. That sounded better. It seemed to fit better in his mouth, Eames could tell. “Look, I don’t… know you. And I… Look, would you like to come back in?”

Eames hadn’t really expected this. “Uh, are you sure? I have no problem going elsewhere until you’re comfortable.” Eames did not intend to go anywhere. He was going to sleep in the car if he had to. There were no other options.

Arthur looked down, fidgeting with his fingers. Arthur wasn’t the type to fidget. “I don’t know you, but watching you walk out of that door felt… wrong.” He looked up. “None of this makes sense.”

Eames only nodded.

“So… let’s go inside, yeah?”

Eames sat on the edge of the couch as if he were a guest, watching Arthur go into the kitchen.

“Would you like some coffee? Wait. English. Tea? Would you like tea?”

Eames chuckled. Goddammit. “Actually, since we’ve been together, I am more keen on coffee. That’s, uh, fine with me.” He listened carefully. There was a thick silence, then the brewer kicked on.

“Since we’ve been together,” Arthur said, gentle, just loud enough for Eames to hear. “Has that been a long time?”

Eames groaned thoughtfully. As if he had to think about it.

Really, he was deciding what he counted as their ‘time together’. Had it started that fateful night in the Saito job warehouse when Arthur caught Eames in a gaze, and he offered a tired smile? Or when they’d ended up in Toronto together a month after that job and shared a hotel room, finally sating the tension? Or when Arthur surprised Eames for his birthday in London, knowing that he’d be spending it all alone, bottle of champagne in hand, offering a night of conversation? That was what Arthur considered the real beginning – his first time being alone with Eames, sharing a bed just to sleep, to be near one another.

Eames knew in the warehouse. God, he’d known something then. Had it really only been a matter of time?

He’d heard of Arthur before that night, heard that there was no other point man with his level of preciseness and efficiency. They’d even crossed paths once in Russia. Eames was finishing a job, and Arthur was starting one. Both were picking up Somnacin from the chemist there. They made introduction, knowing that they’d have to meet eventually, as both knew Dom and Mal.

He’d worked with him months later. Once. Before the inception.

He spoke quickly and no more than he needed to. There were no poetics to his sentences. No wall between quaintness and condescension. Just a man with a job to do. He lived up to his name, it seemed. Because that was all a man really had in their business – his name and his skillset. There wasn’t much time for pleasantry. Yes, there were certain ‘teams’ that seemed to always work together, but mostly, dreamsharers enjoyed privacy with little attachment.

What was surprising was that he smiled. Once. Out of the corner of his mouth. That was after a couple of hours in the corner of a wonky pub in Mumbai, sharing information about their mark. Eames made a joke, and he couldn’t remember exactly what it had been. That hadn’t mattered. It made Arthur grin. And he looked his age. Gave Eames a glimpse of his imagination.

In the year or so after, when they crossed paths again, whether in the same city or working a job, a love/hate spar built between them. That had been inevitable, hadn’t it? Eames could be a bit of a needler when he was around people who took themselves far too seriously, even if that was a part of their job.

But that night in the warehouse, working late, with Arthur’s brows tight over his little black notebook, and Eames unsure of why he’d decided to stay late in the first place, there was…something. Something that rang in Eames’ ears.

Arthur had smiled at him. And it was all that Eames needed to know.

“Five years,” he called out. “Give or take. Can’t really be sure. You’re better with dates.”

He came into the room with two large mugs, and sat on the other end of the couch. It seemed like a football field. Even before they’d fallen in love, they never sat that far apart. “Long time, yeah?”

Eames shrugged.

“And… this _thing_. This… forgetting? I… How long have I been this way?”

“About eight months or so.” Ten.

“How many times have I forgotten you?”

Eames licked his lips. “This is the, uh, first time like this. Other times you forget my name. You get a bit disheveled. But this is the first time you…”

Arthur nodded, drinking.

They sat quietly for a long while, Arthur looking at the photographs (Eames realized then just how many photographs were around. Arthur had done that. Arthur had prepared.) and Eames watching him.

“I don’t understand why you’re here.”

“’Scuse me?”

Arthur shrugged. “You’re… here still. If you know that I’m… sick, why on Earth would you stay? That’s torturing yourself.”

Eames stared, blinking, unsure of how to respond. “You once told me that our love was the most consistent thing you’d ever known. And God knows that’s what you are to me, love.”

Arthur stiffened at his endearment.

“Sorry.”

Arthur shook his head. “We need sugar.”

Eames’ heart thudded deeply in his chest, and before he could say anything, Arthur had gone into the kitchen.

Eames took sugar in his coffee. Arthur did not.

Arthur came back in after a few moments, no sugar in hand, shoulders rather slumped compared to his usual prim stance. His eyes were careful and apologetic as Eames shot up from the couch, standing, waiting for something. Anything.

A long pause built in Arthur’s throat, and Eames could nearly hear his swallows. “Eames.” He said it as a question. Then, surer of himself and far more defeated, “Eames…”

He couldn’t do anything in response but nod, hands deep in his pockets. For the first time in a long time, he wished he had his chip. He wished he could feel its ridges, its weight.

Arthur came up, slipping his fingers around Eames’ cheeks, taking in the sight of his scratched face, the bruise peeking from the collar of his hoodie. Then his eyes again. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t.” Eames whimpered, nearly collapsing right there. He grabbed Arthur’s wrists, held them tight. He’d probably burst into tears if Arthur took his hands away. He’d never live that down. “Don’t,” he said again.

Arthur nodded, his fingers scratching at him, stepping forward until their foreheads touched. “You hurt?” he asked lowly, his lips nearly pressed to Eames’, his breath hot and wet against his lover’s mouth.

“I’m fine.”

“You won.”

“Yes. I won.”


End file.
